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A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi

2013; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 87; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2013.0080

1945-8134

Jim Hannan,

Indian History and Philosophy

Tom Taylor Brock’s Traitor Hancock & Dean Brock’s Traitor, the third volume of a trilogy including Brock’s Agent and Brock’s Railroad, takes place during Canada’s pivotal War of 1812. The likable character of Jonathan Westlake is brought vividly to life as he navigates through intrigue, harrowing battles, honor, and love. Tom Taylor’s prose is crisp and lively, incorporating well-researched historical detail with wit, humor, and imagination. Aaron Shurin Citizen City Lights Books These agile prose poems by Aaron Shurin wander and leap sensually from bed, to lover, to home, to natural wonders, both personal and universal. The individual words of each poem collide and mingle, sometimes harmoniously and sometimes with a purposeful dissonance. Citizen is a lyrical and affirming look into the vibrant life of San Francisco and into the mind of one of its most accomplished poets. Nota Bene The Secret Life of Vladimir Nabokov is a tremendous book, but perhaps the best thing I can say about it is that Pitzer inspires us to return to Nabokov, to go back and re-read his entire oeuvre with a new, now unsentimental eye. If the concentration camp is the dominant political paradigm of the twentieth century , then the works of someone so entangled with revolution and its exilic aftermath could not have escaped unscathed. Perhaps it’s time to return to Nabokov with the eye of a detective, searching for clues not only to the author and his work but to ourselves as well. Andrew Martino Southern New Hampshire University Aman Sethi. A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi. New York. W.W. Norton. 2012. isbn 9780393088908 Aman Sethi’s A Free Man joins such excellent recent nonfiction accounts of India as William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives, Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and Sonia Faleiro’s Beautiful Thing. Like the authors of these books, Sethi approaches the complexity of Indian society by telling a life story, that of Mohammed Ashraf, a laborer living on the streets of Delhi. Sethi’s account is distinguished by the way his own persona shapes the book in endearing and often humorous ways. As he spends time with his interview subjects in one of Delhi’s poor neighborhoods, Sethi embraces and worries about his role as participant journalist. Initially, Sethi drinks and smokes with Ashraf and his companions . “I may just contemplate a hit of that joint—not because I want to, no sir, but because I have to. That joint . . . shall be for research purposes only.” Soon Sethi changes course. “We sat down for a smoke: me with my cigarettes —no more beedis; after a year . . . I realized being one of the boys is an experiment fraught with peril.” Admitting that he often asks “undeniably boring questions,” Sethi discloses a fundamental rift between the way he—as a more affluent, well-educated Indian—and his subjects understand their lives: “I am still trying to build a year-wise timeline of Ashraf’s life but as far as Ashraf is concerned, he was brought up in Patna and is now in Delhi—everything else can only be accessed via oblique enquiries. As a result, every interview is a bit like playing a word association game.” While the details of Ashraf’s life are compelling, Sethi more significantly captures a philosophical dimension in the lives of Ashraf and other laborers in Delhi. Ashraf seeks a balance between kamai—working for wages—and azadi—freedom . Freedom is often expressed in the following manner. After being slapped by his boss because he missed a day of work, Ashraf “turned around and never went back.” When Sethi asks why, Ashraf replies: “The maalik owns my work, Aman bhai, he doesn’t own me.” While the regularity with which Ashraf loses work and drinks up his earnings seems irresponsible and unhealthy, his effort to retain nominal freedom in a society increasingly structured by the market is inspirational. Rather than getting caught up in politics or social analysis, Sethi instead reveals the potency of stories in his, Ashraf’s, and the reader’s lives. September–October 2013 • 75 76 worldliteraturetoday.org reviews Ashraf remarks: “funny how every short...